


Death Euphemism Challenge

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death, Humor, Post-Sirius in Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:17:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death Euphemism challenge on SBRL</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death Euphemism Challenge

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

Sirius was ill - Very ill, in fact. He leaned headlong over the side of his bed and violently vomited into a tall metal bucket, punctuating the effusions with various curses and gags. It was only to be expected: the journey beyond the veil was peaches and cream compared to the bastard roller coaster ride back. It wasn't that he didn't offer his eternal gratitude to Dumbledore for his efforts in retrieving, but everyone had left him all alone, and he was so lonely, and so unwell and wallowing in the luxury of self-pity.

The door to the infirmary slammed firmly, and Harry came marching past the rows of beds with a thunderous expression.

"Damn that bastard, Snape!" He spat by way of a greeting.

"What happened?" asked Sirius, making sure that his voice was tenuous and cracked enough to give the impression that he was `soldiering on'.

"I'll tell you what happened," Harry raved, coming to the foot of the bed next to Sirius', "Snape was watching every move I was making today," he kicked a leg of the bed angrily, "following everything I did with his beady little eyes, and giving a running commentary on all of my mistakes," another kick, "letting Malfoy flick bits of flobberworm entrails in my hair," kick. "And then at the end of the lesson," yet another kick, "he picks up my cauldron and tips my potion, which I KNOW was perfect, straight down the sink."

He spied the bucket sitting next to Sirius' bed. It would make a most satisfying clang if struck properly, and by Merlin, he wanted to create a din that would aptly celebrate his hatred for Snape. He reared his leg back at the knee, balancing his body weight so as to give optimal torque on his shin, squaring up the body of the bucket to ascertain where the sweet spot for maximum noise would be. And then he dealt a mighty kick.

At first Sirius thought that Harry had merely lost balance, but when he called, "Harry, Harry get up," he got no response. Bestirring himself from the warmth of his bed, he went to Harry's side and poked him in the ribs.

"Come on," he urged, "stop larking about there, Harry. You're not going to get out of cleaning that up by feigning death, you know."

Sirius gave an askance glance to the plume of digested food that was now plastered against the wall.

"Harry," he called again, gently slapping at the boy's cheeks. "Harry!"

He waited, a frown coalescing upon his forehead.

"Harry?" he slid a thin finger down the side of Harry's neck to find a pulse-point; Nothing.

"Pomfrey!" Sirius bellowed, scrabbling at his godson's wrists, "Pomfrey, come here!"

Sirius tried to force air into Harry's lungs, but he really didn't know what to do. Desperately, he scrambled to his feet and raced toward the medi-witch's office, yelling her name at the top of his lungs. She wasn't there, which meant that he had to find someone else. With a call of: "Don't worry, Harry, I'll get help!" he ran from the infirmary and out into Hogwarts.

The place seemed to be deserted, but as he hurried past hallways and classroom, he finally caught a snippet of a dark, satiny voice.

"Davey Jones!" Snape shouted from somewhere nearby, "come here and turn out your pockets this instant!"

Snape! Perfect! The man definitely had some sort of medical training. Sirius skidded around a corner near where he guessed the noise to come from.

A short blonde Hufflepuff withered under Snape's angry glare.

"Yes, sir," the boy mumbled, fiddling in his pockets and producing a handful of miscellany. Their contents displeased Snape.

"I know you have dung bombs, and I know you used them in my classroom this afternoon," Snape hissed. He pointed to a nearby bank of cabinets, "Is that your locker, Jones?"

"It is, sir," admitted the boy.

"Open it!"

The student fumbled a key from his pocket, and, looking extremely apprehensive, fitted it to the lock.

"Snape, I need your help!" cried Sirius, finally locating the source of the voice. It turned out to be the last thing Snape would ever hear, for at that moment, he and the Hufflepuff boy collapsed to the floor in unspectacular heaps.

"Up you get, Snape," Sirius yelled, jogging at the prostrate Potions Master, "This is serious."

But Snape made no move to get up, and only lolled to the side in an unhelpful manner when Sirius planted a foot in his side.

"Damn it," Sirius was getting desperate, and he needed to find someone to help Harry. He gave Snape an appraising glance; well, if the man was dead, the man was dead. He trotted off as fast as he could, calling as he went for notice.

Soon he came across Remus, who was on his hands and knees with his head under a low table, feeling frantically underneath.

"Remus, I need you!"

"This isn't an invitation," muttered Lupin, obviously flustered, as his backside waved tantalisingly in the air, "And anyway, don't you ever get tired of planting the sausage, Sirius? God, I'd like to be able to walk straight at least one week out of the year, you know -"

"No, Re, you don't understand. I need your help!" Sirius rushed up to his friend.

Suddenly, Remus pulled his head out and sat up with a triumphant smile. "I found it!"

"What?"

"My chocolate," Remus explained, looking at it affectionately, "It's my favourite sort, and this was my last one and it fell out of my pocket and rolled under the table." He frowned, "I guess it must have been melted. Look, it's got all dust stuck to it. The house elves must never dust around these places. Never mine, it's still good."

He shrugged, grinned at Sirius, and bit the dusty chocolate. As soon as his teeth had sunk into the sweet goodness, he keeled over backwards and lay perfectly still.

"Remus!" Sirius fell to his knees, grabbed Remus by his collar and administered an enthusiastic shake. Of course, he got no response.

"You've got to be shitting me..." Sirius jumped to his feet, and raced away, now with four lives to look out for salvaging.

He ran into the main hall and almost crashed into an excited McGonagall, who was waving a roll of parchment about and seemed on the verge of performing a jig.

"Black!" she hollered, "You won't believe what's happened!"

"I know exactly what's happened," Sirius panted helplessly, " and I need you to come and help right now!"

"I don't need to go anywhere," insisted McGonagall, indicating the parchment with a quivering finger, "It's right here. Look: The title deed to the most beautiful little farm in Scotland." 

"Huh?" Sirius was flummoxed by this response.

"Don't you see? I'm retiring," the grin on her face was almost manic, and Sirius supposed that's what forty-five hard years teaching adolescents would do to a person, "And I'm going to live on this property. All I have to do is sign this deed, with a witness - you can help me there, Black - and it's mine, I've bought the farm."

Something clicked in Sirius' mind, then. Kick the bucket... Davey Jones' locker... bite the dust...

"No!" he yelped, making a snatch for the parchment, "Don't do it!"

"Don't be ludicrous," admonished the stately woman, as she pulled a quill from her sleeve. She turned and rested the parchment on a nearby desk, and leaned down to sign it, the quill's nib moving tentatively  
closer and closer to the dotted line...

"Noooo..." Sirius made an admirable dive for the quill, but it was too late. When he collected his senses, both the signed parchment and McGonagall were lying inanimate underneath him.

"Bollocks!" he yelled to no one in particular, and decided quickly that he needed to inform Dumbledore of the problem.

He was making his way speedily up the wide staircase that led to Dumbledore's residence, when he heard his name being called.

Ah...good, he thought, turning to see who was summoning him. 

"There's a good lad, Black," Sprout was saying, still picturing the fifteen year old boy she had taught some twenty years ago, "come and help me with this flower box, here. I can't get it up high enough."

Sirius stepped towards the frumpy witch, who was doing a fairly bad job of climbing a foot-ladder to reach a box at the sill of a huge window.

"What are you doing?" Sirius cried, "there's no time for that! Didn't you hear me calling for help?"

"What am I doing?" Sprout parroted, struggling up the last step of the ladder, "What does it look like I'm doing? Trying to make this school look a bit nicer, fix up some window arrangements with nice bright flowers," her chubby fingers reached for the base of the long pot, "It's fallen down, you see. Come on, you can help me, it's not much. All I need to do is push up these daisies."

As she fell to the floor, clearly in a very serious state of life-deficiency, Sirius began to lose his temper.

"Right, that's done it," he spun on his heel and marched smartly toward the gargoyles that guarded the headmaster's office, "the next silly bastard to foolishly throw around a death euphemism is going to  
be shot."

He did not pause to wonder at his own logic, as he took Dumbledore's stair two at a time, finally bursting into the old wizard's office with terrific momentum. Twinkling blue eyes, seeming completely unruffled, rose to meet him.

"Sirius, my boy," beamed Dumbledore, opening his arms in greeting, "Come in, come in. I was just about to begin a game. Pass the time, you know, until dinner." He gestured to the floor.

Sirius' eyes trailed from Dumbledore's radiant face, down his opulent robes to the wooden floorboards on which had been chalked an outline of eleven squares.

"Hopscotch?" Sirius asked, squinting at the Headmaster in disbelief.

"Indeed," agreed Dumbledore happily, "nothing better to get the blood circulating, is there? Come along, you're welcome to join. Of course, I couldn't find any pebbles to throw, so all I have is this twig  
here." He jiggled the twig jovially at the other man, before tossing it into one of the squares.

"There's no time for that, Albus," replied Sirius, remembering himself at once, "something's happening in the school. Something's not right."

"Ahh..." Dumbledore said, beginning his hopping journey along the cross-type outline, "And tell me, young man, what's all the bother, then?"

There was something out of place and Sirius knew it, but he couldn't quite place it until the elderly feet, ensconced in elaborate purple slippers with jolly gold bells, had hopped in happy oblivion to the  
square next to the one housing the twig.

"Oh, Fuck, Albus, STOP!" Sirius wailed, but it was too late. Those merrily tinkling slippers bounded over the little twig in one last glorious leap, and then sounded no more.

"A twig!" Sirius raved, glaring furiously at the cadaver of Albus Dumbledore, "he faces a goodly portion of the free wizarding world in battle, the whole bloody Ministry and Lord fucking Voldemort himself, and now he's snuffed it over a twig?"

Sirius Black was angry. He'd lost his lover, his godson, his friends and his lunch all in once afternoon, and he would be buggered if he was going to lose anyone else.

On feet of wings, he swept out of the office, down the staircases and back into the Entrance Hall, calling out to all and sundry for any assistance at all. He got no reply until he was upon the threshold of the school. Ron, Hermione and Ginny were standing near the entrance, fussing over a large crate in the late sunshine.

"Hey there, Sirius!" Hermione waved him over, "What's the problem. You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Kids," Sirius huffed, "You have to leave the place right now. There's something awful happening."

At this, Ron looked up from his work, his pen poised over a paragraph of his neatest handwriting, detailing his home address on the side of the crate. "What's the problem, mate?" he asked, concerned.

"Everyone's dying," Sirius explained as well as he could with such a fantastical tale to tell, "Harry, Dumbledore, Lupin, Sprout, McGonagall. Dead! They're all dead!"

"Ahh, Sirius," Ginny smiled up at him as she smoothed a square of colourful stamps next to Ron's writing, "You nearly had us there! Dead, indeed. Though I don't suppose I blame you, must be boring up in that hospital wing. You have to make your own entertainment."

"What?" choked Sirius, "I'm serious!"

"Dear me," laughed Hermione, shaking her head, "Now he's going for the puns. Solitary confinement in the hospital wing's turned him Poor man. Look, you can give us a hand here, if you want something to do."

Ron lifted a long leg over the side of the wooden crate and moved to assist Ginny and Hermione in with him.

"Here, don't forget the basket of food, Gin," Ron reminded, hoisting the girls with all his strength. He looked at Sirius, "Got to do this, you see, because the Mum says the taxi fare to get home off the school   
train is too much. Cheaper this way, you know."

"If you could just lift the lid over us, that'd be wonderful, Sirius," Hermione instructed, "We're getting picked up by the post very soon."

Sirius, struck by what he was seeing, but glad all the same that at least Hermione, Ginny and Ron would make an escape, reached for the large lid of the box that rested against the building.

"Can you believe it?" Ginny asked him personably, "so poor that we've got to go home in a box."

Before Sirius could even swear, the trio was piled on top of each other in the bottom in the box. He gaped at them for a while, and then, realising that he couldn't send them home like that, pulled the stamps off the surface of the box. If there was one thing you could rely on from the post, it was that they wouldn't deliver anything they didn't absolutely have to.

At that moment the haunting sound of a flute playing a mournful melody found his ears. It seemed to be wafting from some distance, and he scanned the landscape until he saw the looming figure of Hagrid standing next to the culprit minstrel, his large head bent. It looked as though someone else knew about the deaths, then.

He approached Hagrid silently, not wanting to interrupt, and found that the half-giant was sniffling quite loudly as he stood over what appeared to be a mass grave. There was a large oblong of overturned earth, and Sirius could only assume that Hagrid was trying to give the dead their peace. Tears prickled the back of his eyes as he walked up behind Hagrid and patted him reassuringly on the back.

"It's okay, mate," he said, his voice rough as his throat tightened, "they've gone to a better place."

Hagrid wailed at this, "But I've known him so long! He's been here since the very first day I went to school. Always been a friend to me."

"I know, I know," soothed Sirius, guessing that Hagrid was talking about Dumbledore, "but he's happy now."

"He was happy enough in the lake," moaned Hagrid, and Sirius gave him a startled look. "Squiddy," Hagrid offered, "The giant squid. I don't even understand what happened. One day he's fine and dandy, and the next he's floating belly-up."

Sirius nodded gravely, "I think I know what happened."

"What?"

Sirius sighed, "He slept with the fishes."

Hagrid afforded him a confused glance, before throwing a bunch of roses on Squiddy's grave.

"All right," he sniffled, "Don't mind me, I'll be fine in a few minutes. Got plenty of work to be getting on with. You wouldn't like a cuppa would you?" Hagrid felt about in his pocket, and produced a small, jangling, velvet sack, "Hang on a tick, Sirius. Just got to pay the piper. Hey, Murphy, catch!"

The bag of galleons sailed through the air in slow motion. It was like watching a battle sequence in a tacky Kevin Costner war movie. Sirius even emitted a howling cry of "Nooooooooooooooo..." as the bag flew at the piper and fell with an ominous clink into the man's waiting hand. By the time Sirius could swing back to look at Hagrid, the half-giant was already face down atop Squiddy's grave.

"BUGGER THIS!" roared Sirius, now in an awful temperament, stomping his foot indignantly on the ground. "BUGGER, BUGGER, BUGGER!" he elaborated, kicking ineffectually at the loose soil.

As it turned out, he attracted more attention with these basic ejaculations than he had with any plea for help.

"Sirius Black!" Pomfrey was bustling out of the Forbidden Forest, her skirts held high over a bundle of plants she had plainly been picking for medical supplies, "What are you doing out of bed?"

"It wouldn't matter if I was on a plane to Abu Dhabi right now," Sirius laughed, seeming rather insane at that moment, "because everyone I care about is dead!"

"Delirious!" Pomfrey exclaimed to herself in annoyance, "That's what's happened because he didn't listen to me. Merlin knows I told him not to get out of bed, and now he's gone and left the building."

Sirius only just had time to register the words before he fell backwards to the ground, limp as a kitten and dead as a doornail.

In an impossible and random cameo, Dr. McCoy strolled up to the scene and gave Sirius' lifeless form some brief analysis before pronouncing:

"He's dead, Jim."

***********************************************

Legend:

Harry kicked the bucket.  
Snape and Davey Jones visited Davey Jones' locker.  
McGonagall bought the farm.  
Sprout was pushing up daisies.  
Dumbledore hopped the twig.  
Ron, Hermione and Ginny went home in a box.  
Squiddy sleeps with the fishes.  
Hagrid paid the piper.  
Sirius left the building.


End file.
